


Please Respect My Denial

by SilverCeleb



Category: The Shadow Campaigns - Django Wexler
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Teachers, Drama, F/M, M/M, Other, Polyamory, Possible Spoilers, Slice of Life, Workplace Relationship, idk what is going on
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-08
Updated: 2017-10-07
Packaged: 2019-01-10 11:35:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12298413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverCeleb/pseuds/SilverCeleb
Summary: Marcus has a life with an apartment, a job, few friends, no family, and a serious crush on his co-workers. Plural. He just has to realize that last part of it first, and then he can ruin it all.Totally unnecessary AU that just didn't leave me alone. Set in a modern world very similar to ours, with a few pop culture references missing and some Shadow Campaigns lore thrown in. See about any possible warnings on notes.





	Please Respect My Denial

**Author's Note:**

> Btw I'm looking for a beta to help me with this one. If you want to make me write faster and better, just hit me up!
> 
> Warnings:  
> \- Spoilers about character relationships  
> \- Irresponsible alcohol usage  
> \- Age difference (less than eight years)  
> \- Some nasty language  
> \- Some intimacy  
> \- Subordinate/superior relationship  
> \- Minor character deaths mentioned  
> \- Nasty childhoods  
> \- Writer is not a native English speaker  
> \- I've never been to a college in my life, I did this thingy called university of applied sciences instead  
> \- Possible OCness, I tried to make the characters act like they had been raised in the modern society while still be themselves

”So, next one is Raesnia Orboan”, said Marcus, shifting through a stack of honest to god actual printed paper.

“Ah, the famous Orboan family”, Janus answered, gesturing for him to move forward.

“Yes. A former student of ours, some actual field experience in politics, excellent grasp on modern day communication and marketing in both commercial and noncommercial section, potential for further studies, and an actual CV dating back to her teens”, Marcus told the headmaster and smiled.

“On top of that, she is good with people, as far as I can remember”, he continued as Janus focused on the screen in front of him.

“Oh, so one of your students? And apparently she still has some shirtless photos from Vordan City Pride rally last year on her Instagram”, he observed.

“Yes, graduated on my second year as- wait, what?” Marcus stammered.

“A lovely rainbow bikini top, Marcus. And body paint. She really knows how to take her audience”, Janus examined calmly, before apparently continuing to scroll through what had to be Miss Orboan’s Instagram feed.

“But, is that even”, Marcus stuttered, “I mean, how did you find those photos?”

“Google, dear friend. It’s amazing how much you can learn of a candidate just by their online presence”, Janus said, eyes still glued to the screen. Marcus frowned slightly regardless.

“Janus, sir, isn’t that technically a bit unfair to the candidates? The staff hiring policy of the school is to respect the privacy of any candidate and to my knowledge a private social media account hunting is frowned upon”, he asked.

Janus’ answer was to finally allow Marcus some attention: the smile was fast, just like Janus’ smiles always were. They reminded Marcus of a camera flash, or a lightning strike; there and gone again but bright enough to blind you.

“I’d think that a position like communications and marketing teacher requires someone who can hide their private life from a google search, done by their first and last name used together. I assure you, this is as public as an account can get”, Janus told him.

“I see. Well, I’m sure any content violating our school policy can be discussed with her during the interview”, Marcus said, eager to get past the bikini episode. It made him deeply uncomfortable to think about a former student taking that sort of photos of herself. True, he had had his fair share of wild college years, but back then even Facebook had been new.  _ Call me old fashioned, but social media is going too far. _

“That won’t be necessary, as there is none. There is no policy against selfies or sexual minorities, and as long as she chooses to wear a shirt at work, that won’t be an issue either”, Janus told him. 

Marcus was secretly relieved. Miss Orboan was secretly his favorite candidate, for a few obvious reasons. Certainly she was among the most competent candidates, and where her young age was a possible mark of lesser experience than her fellow candidates, she had the ambition to drive her. 

Marcus was also drawn to her fresh ideology and way of thinking – out of all the teachers only Janus and Fizt seemed to have any desire to update both their methods of teaching and worldview. Orboan would be a good addition to the majorly middle aged and almost entirely male staff, a sorely needed role model for all those young females striving for a degree. Marcus would be the first to admit that he himself fit too comfortably into the stereotype of a perfectly normal college teacher, so as much as he wished to make things easier for his students, he just wasn’t fit for the position.  

“Yes, sir. Glad to hear that. Do we agree then, about inviting her for the interview?” he asked.

“I think we do, Marcus. Let’s see about the next one, then.”

‘’’

Interviews were something Raesnia hated with burning passion. Everything about those was artificial, from the arrangement of the room to the smile on everyone’s face, and to the forced, distant politeness that was still supposed to be somehow both neutral and encouraging.

“Miss Orboan, could you tell us about your strengths as a teacher?” Janus bet Vhalnich, the headmaster of Vordan City College asked her.

As Raesnia rattled of the expected answers, personified version of “I’m the best and most qualified candidate, but also modest and here for your pleasure only, I love you and everything about this position, please give me money”, she made some remarks of her own about Vhalnich.

Vhalnich was the youngest headmaster of VoCiCo in the entire history of the school, even when accounting for the years during war. Born in Mierantai, a child genius according to some articles Raesnia had found online, had graduated in half the time required from a normal student, championship of national chess competition two years back, had several articles of scientific publications, and apparently only three photos of himself in total.

It all seemed to be easy to believe of the man sitting in front of her. Certainly he looked like a distant, ambitious leader of some high institute. No suit, just a designer dress shirt with even more expensive looking jacket over it, paired off with worn out jeans. His hair was styled in the pretentiously effortless way that spoke of tons of hair products and at least an hour of preparation. Fine features with startling eyes. No jewelry, not even a watch.

He was the one of two interviewers Raesnia didn’t know beforehand. The other, Marcus d’Ivore, had been her teacher back in her own college student days. As far as her memory was correct, d’Ivore had been given the position on her fourth year, just two years before her graduation. He was dressed both more casually and traditionally, and had remained mostly silent after introductions.

“I see. Now, I am curious to know why you would choose to apply for a position like this. I think it’s obvious your surname would grant you a much more influential position, or one with more opportunities for suitable career advancement”, he asked after the more standard questions.

Raesnia had to admire the straightforwardness of the man. While the question itself could be seen as borderline insulting, it was one she would have asked herself, if with more subtlety.  She found herself smiling.

“But what could possibly be more influential position than that of a teacher? I understand that it looks like I’m only interested in getting a few years’ worth of work history to back up my cv, but I’m fairly confident this is the career I want, no matter if society in general doesn’t consider it good enough to keep me happy. I don’t need to strive for a better salary either, as I’m sure you know”, she told them.

And it was true. She had no interest in furthering her political career, didn’t want to pursue any leading position of some massive, faceless company, or to get involved with investments or real estate business. And as Vhalnich had kindly pointed out, her surname meant she didn’t need to worry about the costs of living either.

So all she had to do was to pursue her own interests. In this case it was academic research with a side order of sharing information to the next generation. And VoCiCo was the best place to do that, if only she could get in.

‘’’

Marcus returned back to the group study room after escorting Miss Orboan back to the waiting area the candidates had been invited to. A total six of them had made it through Janus’ evaluation on paper, Raesnia Orboan being the fourth, still leaving two other candidates waiting. 

“It seems you were right in your assessment of Miss Orboan”, Janus told Marcus as he walked back to the chairs.

“How so?” Marcus asked, used to being pretty much clueless about what his superior meant.

“We want her, and we want her now. You may as well get the process rolling after we talk to de Ferre and Novus, for forms’ sake. I want her to start after this period, which will leave you roughly a month to get her used to the ropes. Call her tomorrow, after we’ve passed the info to the staff in today’s meeting”, Janus said, already focusing back on the laptop screen.

“Yes, sir”, Marcus agreed, head spinning with the speed everything was proceeding but pleased about the outcome, then realising what Janus had actually said.

“Wait, I’ll be the one to mentor her?”

“Yes”, Janus said, smile in both his voice and face fast as ever, “you are the one best suited to handle that, I’d say. You certainly were more than patient with me on my familiarization period”.

It would be hell of a busy few weeks for him, but when Janus spoke like that it was impossible to doubt his ability to pull through. Also Raesnia the adult seemed almost threateningly competent and professional, so it wouldn’t be like wrangling some summer intern with zero motivation and chronic sleep deprivation.

“I just knew the past overachieving would come back to bite me in the ass one day”, he commented wryly.

‘’’

The week following her interview was pretty intense. Raesnia had received a call from d’Ivore early next morning, and accepted the position right away. She couldn’t quite contain her excitement about it, restricting her glee to a moderate amount right until after the call when she jumped and whooped around her apartment like crazy. Then she called Sothe.

“I did it! I got that place!” she exclaimed before Sothe even finished saying hi.

“As if they were ever going to pick someone else”, came the answer, though Raesnia could hear the pride and happiness in her voice.

As Sothe rarely if ever expressed her feelings openly, it was pretty much on an equal level as her own celebration.

“Easy to say that now. Oh, and by the way it seems Vhalnich is just as snobby as you predicted, but tolerably so”, Raesnia went on.

“Again, told you so. Did you at least get him to give you a decent salary?”

“Oh please, of course I did. Well, as decent as they can offer with the funding being shit. Honestly I kind of felt bad about it, since I’m not exactly short on money and now some low income kid is probably eating cardboard for a month to afford tuition”, she confessed, only half joking.

Because really, she had three apartments, two cars, obscure insurance, and no student loans. And if she would ever manage to burn them and her bank account all simultaneously, her father would pay for a new in a heartbeat.

“Want me to give you the speech again?” Sothe asked, not for the first time.

“Nah, I’m too excited to mope over my privilege. Besides, I’ve got to start arrangements - they want me to come in starting tomorrow! I’m pretty sure it’ll be just signing up some papers and getting my copy of office keys, but it is still pretty sudden”, she said.

“Then I’ll let you go, since you’ll better make time for drinks after work. Text me about details, and see you at Girl’s Own” Sothe said and that was pretty much it.

The next call Raesnia made was to her current employer, to kindly let them know she’d finally have that paid leave thank you very much, starting from tomorrow and ending with the contract expiring in two weeks anyway. Her employer of course wasn’t very happy, offering to pay her more or extend her deadlines, or both. Too bad her direct superior had been a total ass, the work mostly boring, and they had some serious issues with internal communications.

Then she took a break with her second cup of coffee, daily news, and a healthy dose of social media. After making sure the world hadn’t exploded in more than five places overnight, she called her father. The conversation was short, he rarely had the time to talk properly, but Raesnia got the impression that he at least didn’t disapprove of her career choice. 

Career was the one thing they didn’t really agree on. Raesnia wasn’t interested in continuing as the head of Orboan corporations. Her father was very interested in Raesnia continuing as the head of Orboan corporations. Hence the disagreement. As the years went on and Raesnia kept making her own way they had sort of settled into a pattern of don’t-ask-don’t-tell, but this was so major she couldn’t not tell him.

By the time she sat in front of her work computer it was already well past morning, so she resigned to have a late night with Sothe. There were surprisingly many things to wrap up, and not so surprisingly most of those were at least partially the fault of the asshat superior. Maybe she would squeeze in still one more workday of this, get at least three of her current customers done before handing all the orders to her successor. It would be less of a hassle that way: happier customers, less work for her, less work for everyone else too.

When lunchtime rolled around, she made her way out and across the street to a cozy cafe, where she had a standing lunch meeting with Cora. Ordering her usual (soup of the day), she settled by the window to wait for her friend to arrive. Raesnia and Cora had been friends since highschool, when they had bonded over their love for politics instead of boy bands and alcohol.

Cora arrived less than a minute later, and Raesnia couldn’t contain her massive smile.

“No way! You got it, didn’t you?” Cora, ever the fast thinker, squealed with excitement.

“I totally did. And I’m starting tomorrow!” Raesnia beamed back.

“Oh my god, I can’t take it. Please swear to me you’ll invite me to all those events where the sexy, single professors hang out”, Cora sighed, taking a seat next to her.

“Sure, if you are interested in weeny hipster nerds or ancient relics with ten previous affairs with their students”, Raesnia promised easily.

“Aww, come on. I know for a fact that the headmaster is barely older than I am, and I still have the evidence of you moaning after that one guy, Mark, or something. No, Marcus. ‘The hottest ass in the whole campus’, by the drunken confession of Raesnia Orboan”, Cora teased.

Their soups arrived but that didn’t stop Raesnia from grinning to her friend.

“Yeah, Marcus, and that hot ass is my mentor for some months”, she said triumphantly. 

Cora made an appreciative sound.

“If you don’t get yourself a seriously hot workplace romance within the first two weeks I’m going to be seriously disappointed.”

“Oh please, I’m not going to ruin my life with something as cliche as that. He will be nice eye candy and hopefully a better mentor than some of my previous ones, but I’m going to be professional about this. No romance, no drama”, Raesnia said, brushing aside the comment easily.

Really, she wasn’t the type to fool around with the people she was supposed to work with, and she wasn’t about to start now.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I have a few personal headcanons about how the modern versions of these characters might look like, and collected a few handy images to share. Some of these might look really different than what you are imagining and that's super cool, you have my blessing to keep your headcanons the way they are. Also uh yeah books might not agree with me either.
> 
> Marcus: https://78.media.tumblr.com/ae05dcf537f8fb245be18a65b3700a07/tumblr_ox194tccFq1v1i3a9o1_540.jpg  
> Raesnia: http://78.media.tumblr.com/fc866a9bd070b5d044e1f8798d39ec01/tumblr_inline_n0gl25bBnS1sokf5m.jpg  
> Janus: http://78.media.tumblr.com/51aa6bf7eb53097cce9f75d10f2b6247/tumblr_mkalhuHj8Y1qav5d4o3_500.jpg  
> Winter: http://78.media.tumblr.com/c92300fe40d06bf1ebf96cf2153c10f9/tumblr_odxfl6iRt51ukwdx9o1_500.jpg  
> FItz: http://78.media.tumblr.com/2e2f2365a68b08b1c7af1a34ae2e77d8/tumblr_mzfd3tg4QY1toegzoo1_500.jpg  
> Jane: http://78.media.tumblr.com/0b9130bbf79b8f0896b9209308bc421e/tumblr_nn8xbdI8QH1rao8kfo1_500.jpg  
> Bobby: http://78.media.tumblr.com/047bcbd59afe76898431af2300ad0941/tumblr_o8966tztRA1qfvrzvo3_250.jpg  
> Medio: https://78.media.tumblr.com/b254fcf2547f24eb0f737718d7e1e1a5/tumblr_ow8uv1usaz1tkkd59o6_1280.jpg  
> Cyte: http://78.media.tumblr.com/8fa9ee3e75ca86288f0099d2ac21ce1e/tumblr_o4vw2gwNQ01s3u0h4o2_500.jpg  
> Feor: http://78.media.tumblr.com/ca938c6f600ffadc01d9861ccdb26506/tumblr_ojl71zZVpH1s2hm4so1_1280.jpg  
> Cora: http://78.media.tumblr.com/5b881bd4f0845133b9fb6042443ab4e9/tumblr_onn5nx6bsF1udakjdo1_1280.jpg


End file.
